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Facts about Banebdjedet
This article contains fast, interesting, facts about Banebdjedet for research, schools, students and kids providing an insight into the lives and religious beliefs of the ancient Egyptians.

Banebdjedet, the god of fertility and the association with Baphomet

The following facts detail information about the god together with modern interpretations of this ancient Egyptian deity.

The Gods of Egypt - Banebdjedet Fact Sheet

Fact 1 on Banebdjedet: The god of fertility, the "Ba of the Lord of Mendes" was depicted with the head of a type of ram that was once common in ancient Egypt but is now extinct - see picture below of the 'Ovis longipes palaeo-aegyptiacus'. The ram-headed god Khnum was the equivalent god in Upper Egypt.

Fact 2 on Banebdjedet: He was consulted at the 'Divine Tribunal' and decided that Osiris rather than Horus and Set, should be the ruler of the earth with the title of the 'great living god'.

Fact 3 on Banebdjedet: He was believed to be the ba of Re, Shu, Geb and Osiris. The 'Ba' was the part of the soul that embarked on a journey to follow the gods refer to Ka and Ba.

Fact 4 on Banebdjedet: His cult center was based in Mendes in the Nile Delta region of Lower Egypt. Together with his consort, the fish goddess Hatmehit, and their son Harpocrates, aka Horus the child,  they formed the Triad of Mendes, also referred to as the "Mendesian Triad".

Fact 5 on Banebdjedet: The cult center at Mendes is claimed to have included sexual intercourse between humans and goats as part of fertility rites.

Fact 6 on Banebdjedet: One of his titles or epithets was the "Lord of Sexual Pleasure".

Fact 7 on Banebdjedet: The curious, twisted horizontal horns, with spiralling horns coming out of the sides of the skull, are like nothing we would now associate with a ram - they are more like the horns of a Billy Goat.

Fact 8 on Banebdjedet: The Greek historian Herodotus, due to a translation error, referred to Banebdjedet as ‘The goat of Mendes’. He described the god being was depicted with a goat's face and legs. Herodotus then goes on to relate how all male goats were held in great reverence by the people of Mendes, and how in his time a woman publicly copulated with a goat. Herodotus also stated that they called both the god Pan and the goat Mendes.

Fact 9 on Banebdjedet: The Greeks therefore changed the name from Banebdjedet to Mendes and referred to the ram as a goat.

Fact 10 on Banebdjedet: Pan and Mendes (the Greek name for Banebdjedet) were both were worshipped as gods of fertility and fecundity, meaning fruitfulness. Pan is represented in Egypt by the painters, just as he is in Greece, with the face and legs of a goat.

Fact 11 on Banebdjedet: According to E. A. Wallis Budge "At several places in the Delta, e.g. Hermopolis, Lycopolis, and Mendes, the god Pan and a goat were worshipped"

Fact 12 on Banebdjedet: It was the sexual connotations associated with his Mendes cult center that led to the god being interpreted as an incarnation of the devil by the first Christians. He became the face of evil, decadence and immorality and therefore given the title of the 'King of the Witches' worshipped at meetings of witches.

Fact 13 on Banebdjedet: Baphomet: The Goat of Mendes led to associations with Baphomet who is linked to the beliefs of the Knights Templar and to the occult. The animal most often associated with Baphomet is the goat.

Fact 14 on Banebdjedet: Baphomet: The name of Baphomet and the 'Goat of Mendes' became further associated with the occult in 1854 when Eliphas Levi published Dogme et Rituel de la Haute Magie ("Dogmas and Rituals of High Magic"), in which he included an image that he had drawn himself, which he described as "Baphomet the Sabbatic Goat" - see picture of Baphomet below.

Fact 15 on Banebdjedet: Baphomet: The original image of Eliphas Levi was employed in the later 19th century to suggest the worship of Baphomet by Freemasons to discredit their society.

Fact 16 on Banebdjedet: Baphomet: In his work entitled the Book of Thoth (1944) by the occultist Aleister Crowley he associates Baphomet with the Tarot card "The Devil".

The Gods of Egypt - Banebdjedet Fact Sheet